In recent years, in photographic processing of color photographic materials, it has been desired to shorten the processing time as the time of delivery of the finished product has become shortened and the labor of the photofinishing lab work has lessened. As a measure for shortening the time in each processing step, although increasing the temperature or increasing the replenishing amount is a general technique, a number of other techniques, including enhancement of the stirring or the addition of various accelerators, have been suggested.
However, it has been revealed that when the development activity is simply increased by the above techniques, an increase of yellow stain and streak-like processing streak occurs with the progress of continuous processing using an automatic processor.
The present inventors have studied in various ways and have found that yellow stain is fogging of yellow.
In rapid processing, to reduce fogging, it is known to use organic antifoggants as disclosed in JP-A ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application) Nos. 95345/1983 and 232342/1984. However, their antifogging ability is short of full prevention of the increase of fogging and streak-like fogging involved in continuous processing, and the use of a large amount of organic antifoggants results in a decrease of the maximum density and a delay of the development, failing to solve the above problems.
Further, to reduce fogging of yellow, it is known to use pivaloyl-type yellow couplers described in JP-A No. 26133/1972. In comparison with benzoyl-type yellow couplers, pivaloyl-type yellow couplers reduce yellow fog but the reduction is not yet adequate, also failing to solve the above problems.